Lend Energy to self?

[Plane]

This would normally seem pointless (it costs you the FP you will receive from it) but in combination with Linking/Meta spells it seems potentially useful. I'd like to know if it's legal. I don't see it saying you can't target yourself so I thought maybe?

For example if you had 10 FP, could you do "Delay" (M130) + Lend Energy 5, spending 8 FP to potentially restore yourself with 5 FP with the triggering condition being "when I reach 1 FP" long as it happens within the next 2 hours (otherwise you'd need to maintain).

To not have that count as an 'on' spell you could then use Maintain Spell (M128) on Delay

Then you could restore all your FP to normal through some "Recover Energy" but you'd have this floating pool of FP ready to instantly replenish you as soon as you get engaged in battle and deplete yourself, when you're in a situation where you can't use Recover Energy.

Hang Spell (M128) just seems like a more flexible version of this, which is more expensive and lasts half as long, but allows you to will the energy to be given to yourself at any moment instead of only when your specific "Link" trigger condition happens.

The vulnerability to this strategy is I guess that an enemy mage could come along and "Steal Spell" to target your Delay / Hang and then they could have the Lend Energy restore FP to themselves instead of your original target (yourself).

Another place I'd like to know if it would be useful for is in refilling Energy Reserves. Say you had an energy reserve for Psi at 0/10 and you were at 10/10 FP: could you use Lend Energy to shift that to put Psi at 2/10 leaving you with 8/10 FP?

Since this seems potentially exploitable, I was thinking maybe the M88 penalty for healing spells (-1 to skill per missing HP when targeting self) might in this case apply a penalty equal to missing FP instead of missing HP? This would make it harder to have a bunch of delayed/hung Lend Energy mana pools ready to replenish you. Still possible (and interesting) but they would be more likely to fizzle out.

[Balor Patch]

Moving points between your energy reserve and FP to optimize recovery time would also be useful.

[Plane]

In the case of "Drains Familiar" limitation on energy reserve, restoring your reserve and your familiar's FP would also be essentially the same thing, but maybe what balances allowing that is needing to target them using the speed/range table, even though I get the impression you can draw on their FP with unlimited range...

I'm wondering if there's a way to have 1 spell split FP among multiple people too, like if you have 9 familiars who each have only 10 FP but you want to spend 90 FP to fill them from 0 to 10, if you could make an area effect version of Lend Energy. In that way you would be filling up multiple Energy Reserves simultaneously since their FP and your reserves are indistinguishable.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Plane

This would normally seem pointless (it costs you the FP you will receive from it) but in combination with Linking/Meta spells it seems potentially useful. I'd like to know if it's legal. I don't see it saying you can't target yourself so I thought maybe?

With FP, yes.

Your Lend + Delay/Hang + Maintain is both fiddly and fragile enough most GMs aren't going to care.

Another place I'd like to know if it would be useful for is in refilling Energy Reserves. Say you had an energy reserve for Psi at 0/10 and you were at 10/10 FP: could you use Lend Energy to shift that to put Psi at 2/10 leaving you with 8/10 FP?

No. EP is not FP and is not replenishable that way. You can go the other way though, EP to FP, which has its benefits.

Since this seems potentially exploitable...

Not really worth it. If it starts becoming a hassle at the table I take it away in game, by removing the the Mage's ability to rest after charging up the Delayed Lend Energy*, have him fight in a Low Mana Zone (which can suppress the Delayed spell) or cross a No Mana Zone (which dispel it), have enemies dispel or steal it.



* This doesn't "take it away", it just reduces the mage's ability to cast spells until they have the chance to rest. It makes the whole "I'll just prep my contingency FP before we go into the dungeon" thing a bit of a riskier proposition.

[Aldric]

The only real issue you might have is mages consuming some FP and then replenishing them from ER.
They can then recover ER at a fixed rated even when engaged in activities that won't let them recover FP, possibly even outlasting the Fighter with Very Fit that also bought extra FP.

As for familiars... Anyone that writes Allies on his sheet raises a flag. When they start getting abilities granted by those allies who are also Summonable and always available, the number of flags increases.
Multiple allies... you're asking for it.

[Varyon]

I really like the idea. Granted, I'm not a big fan of GURPS default magic system (RPM and Sorcery are more my preference), but the idea of "storing up" some FP in a temporary, single-use, fragile container seems both useful and fairly balanced.

[VIVIT]

This sort of thing is why I actually like standard magic. You can get up to all kinds of funky shenanigans with meta-spells.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

No. EP is not FP and is not replenishable that way. You can go the other way though, EP to FP, which has its benefits.

P235 says "Energy Reserve: A pool of FP isolated from mundane FP"

P119 does say "an ER isn’t the same as FP" on the other hand.

"Factors that alter FP recovery generally have no effect on ER recharge rate." doesn't seem to apply to "Energy" spells though, at least for ER (Magic):
the Recover Energy spell (p. B248) improves the recharge rate of ER (Magic)

I guess I just figured if both Replenish Energy and Steal Energy (mentioned "Special Recharge", I assume it works to replenish magic ER lacking that limitation too) can refill Enery Reserve that also Lend Energy (either from yourself or from an ally) might be able to replenish it also.

Self-casting Lend Energy to get around Special Recharge (or even Slow Recharge) would be a problem though, which is why I figure if you do that the -1 to skill per missing HP should be -1 to skill per missing FP since other self-healing suffers that penalty.

If you applied that "lost FP as lost HP" idea to "Recover Energy" too, that would also make people need to put more points in it, and have it reduce in effectiveness the more FP someone lost, which sounds good if the book-keeping can be handled. If Recover Energy is being used to both replenish ER (Magic) and normal FP, a -2 for "doing two things at once" would also help to depower that crazy-good spell.

Of course, this wouldn't impede allies from casting Lend Energy on you to replenish your Slow/Special Recharge energy reserves, but at least that comes with additional complications (like allies getting kidnapped/killed or being unwilling to help you).

Critical failed lend energy should probably have negative effects like critical failed healing, like actually further depleting HP/FP instead of recovering it.

Originally Posted by VIVIT

This sort of thing is why I actually like standard magic. You can get up to all kinds of funky shenanigans with meta-spells.

It provides a nice alternative to someone spending all their points to buy up FP / Energy Reserve, and it's something only skilled mages could do since the meta-spells have so many prereqs.

Of course, if you have a bunch of Hung/Delay spells floating around you at all times, that should be conspicuous... maybe that should make someone easier to detect to those who can sense magic?

Some guy with "I have 100 Fireball spells delayed until I shout FLAME ON being Maintained on my person" would be a major threat for any who encountered him, but that much magic surrounding you... it's gotta be more detectable somehow than someone with no delayed/hung spells on their person.

Are there any rules for it being easier to detect mages based on the number of spells they have activated? Each delayed spell (whether it be a prepped fireball or a prepped lend energy) should probably add up somehow to make them more conspicuous.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Plane

"Factors that alter FP recovery generally have no effect on ER recharge rate." doesn't seem to apply to "Energy" spells though, at least for ER (Magic):
the Recover Energy spell (p. B248) improves the recharge rate of ER (Magic)

Well, I guess it does. I don't allow it for exactly the reason you mention.

In fact, I've been known to overrule Recover Energy from affecting it for specific campaigns.

[Plane]

ER (Magic) 5 (Special Recharge -80%) [3] would be a pretty sweet deal if you could simply have a buddy top you up using Lend Energy and 3 energy.

I think you can already can do this using Steal Energy and a cooperative buddy but the 1:3 ratio makes it cost them 9 and it takes them 3 minutes to do...

I actually can't think of anything preventing you from using Steal Energy on yourself (spending 3 Fatigue Points to refill 1 Energy Reserve over the course of 1 minute) but even though this is a Necromancy and not a Healing spell, since it's healing-ish in nature (it has Minor Healing as a prereq after all) a similar idea of applying a skill penalty equal to how much FP is missing from your Energy Reserve would make this self-use strategy tougher to exploit. I like the idea of it being SLIGHTLY possible for higher skilled healer-necromancers to manage though.